An engaging consideration of happy accidents and lucky environmental mistakes.
Human error works for the greater good in this engaging true tale of an old-growth forest getting the last laugh.
How do you misplace something that was never truly lost? To answer that question, consider the case of the Lost Forty. In 1785 the Continental Congress declared that the United States be surveyed as it expanded, so in 1882, Josiah R. King and his crew surveyed three townships in Minnesota. Yet it wasn’t until 1958 that someone figured out that King had made a mistake. On the maps, King had listed a patch of old-growth forest as part of Coddington Lake. By the time the mistake was detected, loggers had avoided the area and the trees were part of the Chippewa National Forest. (The text falsely implies that this means they are “protected forever,” although logging does take place in national forests.) The book takes care to mention that the survey of Minnesota could only occur after “most of the land had been taken from Native people” because “the government of the United States wanted [it].” Bowen’s art alternates between thick, deep hues and light, winsome watercolors, but an aesthetically jarring typeface mars the overall design. Additional information about old-growth forests and where to find them, as well as the details of surveying, rounds out the book.
An engaging consideration of happy accidents and lucky environmental mistakes. (Informational picture book. 5-9)Pub Date: April 2, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-8166-9796-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Univ. of Minnesota
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
A gleeful game for budding naturalists.
Artfully cropped animal portraits challenge viewers to guess which end they’re seeing.
In what will be a crowd-pleasing and inevitably raucous guessing game, a series of close-up stock photos invite children to call out one of the titular alternatives. A page turn reveals answers and basic facts about each creature backed up by more of the latter in a closing map and table. Some of the posers, like the tail of an okapi or the nose on a proboscis monkey, are easy enough to guess—but the moist nose on a star-nosed mole really does look like an anus, and the false “eyes” on the hind ends of a Cuyaba dwarf frog and a Promethea moth caterpillar will fool many. Better yet, Lavelle saves a kicker for the finale with a glimpse of a small parasitical pearlfish peeking out of a sea cucumber’s rear so that the answer is actually face and butt. “Animal identification can be tricky!” she concludes, noting that many of the features here function as defenses against attack: “In the animal world, sometimes your butt will save your face and your face just might save your butt!” (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A gleeful game for budding naturalists. (author’s note) (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: July 11, 2023
ISBN: 9781728271170
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks eXplore
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
More thoughtful, sometimes exhilarating encounters with nature.
In a new entry in the Over and Under series, a paddleboarder glimpses humpback whales leaping, floats over a populous kelp forest, and explores life on a beach and in a tide pool.
In this tale inspired by Messner’s experiences in Monterey Bay in California, a young tan-skinned narrator, along with their light-skinned mom and tan-skinned dad, observes in quiet, lyrical language sights and sounds above and below the sea’s serene surface. Switching perspectives and angles of view and often leaving the family’s red paddleboards just tiny dots bobbing on distant swells, Neal’s broad seascapes depict in precise detail bat stars and anchovies, kelp bass, and sea otters going about their business amid rocky formations and the swaying fronds of kelp…and, further out, graceful moon jellies and—thrillingly—massive whales in open waters beneath gliding pelicans and other shorebirds. After returning to the beach at day’s end to search for shells and to spot anemones and decorator crabs, the child ends with nighttime dreams of stars in the sky meeting stars in the sea. Appended nature notes on kelp and 21 other types of sealife fill in details about patterns and relationships in this rich ecosystem. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
More thoughtful, sometimes exhilarating encounters with nature. (author’s note, further reading) (Informational picture book. 6-9)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-79720-347-8
Page Count: 56
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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